About
Selene is a vocal consort of young professional singers carving a niche in programming reconstructed sacred polyphony alongside homegrown contemporary compositions, delivered with its signature intensity of text and vocal colour. Renowned for “ravishingly lovely and deeply intellectually engaging” performances (Rick Anderson, USA CD), Selene is especially focussed on bringing to life the raw expressive power of pre-Reformation English masterpieces unheard for over 500 years. Founded in Oxford in December 2021, the ensemble is directed by tenor and composer Daniel Gilchrist, and is establishing itself as one of the most distinctive voices in early music performance.
Between them, Selene’s singers have served in some of Britain’s finest choral foundations – King’s and St John’s Colleges, Cambridge, Durham Cathedral, St George’s Chapel, Windsor – and can now be found in leading professional ensembles including Tenebrae, Ex Cathedra, The Queen’s Six, and Stile Antico. Many are also accomplished soloists on the oratorio and opera platforms. Through this depth of experience, Selene brings authority and vitality to music that has waited centuries to be heard.
"I cannot praise the choir and its director Daniel Gilchrist enough"
Gary Higginson, Music Web International
Selene’s mission is rooted in discovery. The ensemble specialises in liturgical and paraliturgical polyphony of the 15th to 17th centuries – especially music that has never been heard in modern times – performing it with the emotional colour it demands. Their landmark collaboration with editor Dr. Russell Blacker on the partially preserved works of the Eton Choirbook – a UNESCO-registered repository of English polyphony from the reign of Henry VII – has already yielded two critically acclaimed albums on CRD Records, and has brought to public ears music that had been silent (and, indeed, invisible) for over 500 years.
"Breathtaking in scholarship and performance." Amazon, 5 stars
"Ravishingly lovely... deeply intellectually engaging." Rick Anderson, USA CD Hot List for Libraries
"Incredibly special." BBC Radio 3, February 2025
Selene's debut album Heavenly Light (CRD, 2025) was broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and selected for the USA CD Hot List for Libraries. Their second album Earthly Solace followed in 2026, and described as “perfectly tuned and with an open-hearted warmth” (Music Web International). Recent concerts have taken Selene to Magdalen College Oxford, the Three Choirs Festival, and St Martin-in-the-Fields.
This is for me the most exciting new release so far this year"
Gary Higginson, Music Web International
Origins
The English city of Oxford is home to several institutions with a pre-eminent place in the world of choral music – amongst the dreaming spires chapels and choirs associated with significant names from Sheppard to Higginbottom coexist with more modern foundations like Christ Church. But just over Magdalen bridge lies an establishment held in absolutely unparalleled esteem by the choral community – we are referring of course to the Public House known as The Half Moon, beloved of the city’s musicians for as long as history relates for the simple reason that it stays open several hours longer than anywhere else. And it was here that, one freezing night in December 2021, a conversation took place between two holders of the office of Lay Clerk – one of the oldest posts in any of the University’s colleges, preceding the invention of undergraduates by some years – at New College and Magdalen College. Of this encounter, Selene was born.